LifeNews.com Note: With a twice-weekly column appearing in over 600 newspapers nationwide, Cal Thomas is the most widely read and one of the most highly regarded voices on the American political scene. A graduate of American University, Thomas is a 35-year veteran of broadcast and print journalism. A writer of force and clarity, Thomas has authored ten books.

Most inhumanities start small, like the beginning of a tsunami, but then build, as they head toward inevitable and unstoppable destruction.

It is difficult to pinpoint the precise beginning of the cultural tsunami that has devalued human life. Did it begin with the subjugation of women? Did it begin with slavery? The Nazis made their contribution with the Holocaust and Josef Mengeles hideous human experiments. Surely unrestricted abortion added to the growing list of inhumanities.

Now we have the next wave. Randy Stroup is a 53-year-old Oregon man who has prostrate cancer, but no insurance to cover his medical treatment. The state pays for treatment in some cases, but it has denied help to Stroup. State officials have determined that chemotherapy would be too expensive and so they have offered him an alternative: death.

Oregons physician-assisted suicide law allows taxpayers to pay for someone to kill Stroup, because its cheaper than trying to heal him. How twisted is this? Some have called this a chilling corruption of medical ethics, but medical ethics have been in the deep freeze for some time. The American Medical Association, which once strongly opposed abortion, now buys into the choice argument despite Hippocrates admonition that physicians make a habit of two things -- to help, or at least to do no harm.

How much is a human life worth? Body parts and bone marrow can fetch some pretty high prices, but a human life is more than the sum of its body parts. The reason this is important is that the federal government is now placing a price tag on individual lives and if government ever gets to run health care from Washington, bureaucrats will start making decisions similar to the one made for Randy Stroup.

Various government agencies contribute estimates for a concept known as the Value of Statistical Life. Like housing prices, the value of life has gone down in the eyes of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The EPA says human life this year is worth $7.22 million. Thats a drop from its previous estimate of $8.04 million. The Department of Transportation calculates the value of human life at $5.8 million, an increase from $3 million. At the Consumer Product Safety Commission, human life is unchanged from the last estimate of $5 million.

According to The Washington Post, several federal agencies have come up with figures for the dollar value of a human life to analyze the costs and benefits of new programs they believe will save lives.

Saving lives is the announced intention, but if government gains the power to determine when a life is no longer worth saving and orders the plug to be pulled or the death pill to be administered, then what? This is the future of the socialized medicine that Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and the Democratic Party wish to impose on us.

In a culture that values all life, difficult decisions can be made about a life that is at an end and should be allowed to go. That is a far cry from having a government bureaucrat or panel of experts play God and decide, based on cost alone, when your or my life no longer has value in the eyes of the state.

How we view and value ourselves affects how we view and value others. If we are mere evolutionary accidents with no moral value greater than cole slaw, then we quickly begin viewing others as part of the vegetable family. But if we are something far more special, even to the point of having a Creator who has endowed us with value beyond that of gold, silver and paper money, then should we not be treated as such, even by the state?

The Randy Stroup case won't be the last of its kind. Just as Jack Kevorkians illegal assisted suicide preceded its legalization in Oregon, so, too, will Randy Stroup be the test case in what amounts to mandated medical euthanasia ordered by the state.

When pro-lifers warned about the slippery slope more than three decades ago, they were dismissed as alarmists. Not anymore. Their prophecy is now being fulfilled.

The Randy Stroup case won't be the last of its kind. Just as Jack Kevorkians illegal assisted suicide preceded its legalization in Oregon, so, too, will Randy Stroup be the test case in what amounts to mandated medical euthanasia ordered by the state.

When pro-lifers warned about the slippery slope more than three decades ago, they were dismissed as alarmists. Not anymore. Their prophecy is now being fulfilled.

It is very simple. If the ‘statistical value’ of your life, adjusted for your life expectancy, becomes less than the expected costs projected for your medical treatment, than no more healthcare for you. ‘Oh brave new world that has such people in it’.

Without doubt Hillary-Obama-Soros Kare is the solution for the shortfalls facing both Social Security and Medicare.

HOS is the reason that the Rat Party (formerly the traditional, patriotic Democratic Party) refuses to cooperate to reform Social Security and Medicare. They will "reform" both in their own manner.

Their "universal" health coverage has palliative care for the aged and those with "unhealthy" life styles, excluding gays of course.

Remember the former Democrat governor of Colorado, Lamm I think it was? The old with serious diseases or disorders should die and get out of the way. He later amended that to say that anyone with serious diseases or disorders should die and get out of the way -- by now he probably has exluded gays.

That's the plan. I bet. Of course they are not telling anyone, openly; but it's what Soros wants, he has backed off from just killing 'em. The last time I looked.

7
posted on 08/01/2008 4:32:21 PM PDT
by WilliamofCarmichael
(If modern America's Man on Horseback is out there, Get on the damn horse already!)

"Do you think the government should force taxpayers, by threat of imprisonment, to fund unlimited medical treatment, regardless of expense or efficacy, for those who cannot afford insurance?"

It's a reasonable question.

Thanks to an explosion in the number of new therapies (sometimes effective, sometimes futile, often experimental) made available in the last 20 years, a sick person with a hypothetically unlimited budget could sign up for literally thousands of different drugs, devices, surgeries, diet and supplement regimens that could do him little good or no good at all but cost an eye-popping fortune.

And that's not factoring in the ever-expanding array of diagnostic procedures which could pinpoint his condition --- or not --- but in either case, could go on forever.

The really wicked thing about this situation is not that the state made a judgment not to pay for a medication which was very expensive but which they judged to be of very little benefit: the wicked thing is that they offered legal suicide as an alternative.

I could go into a rant against government-controlled medicine --- "As efficient as the U.S. Postal Service and as compassionate as the IRS" --- but I will leave that for other posters.

I just wanted to make the point that the resources for diagnosis and treatment of disease are not infinite, and that any agency which has the duty to make prudent budgetary allocations will have to choose some options and un-choose others.

Bottom line: suicide should never be offered as an option. And the cost of medical care should be borne by private payment, insurance, philanthropy and charity. It should not become a function fo the State.

13
posted on 08/01/2008 5:56:26 PM PDT
by Mrs. Don-o
("The first duty of intelligent men of our day is the restatement of the obvious. " - George Orwell)

Some people who can't afford medical care will die, that's inevitable in a country where technology is exploding and the population aging faster than the growth in taxable income.

Should we make decisions about who will get what level of taxpayer funded care, or just fill the requests for costly therapies first come first serve and close the door when the money. It's a tough question and I don't claim to have an easy answer.

17
posted on 08/01/2008 7:11:36 PM PDT
by Notary Sojac
(My grandkids will ask-Was there really a time when I could get on a plane without removing my shoes?)

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